Less than one week before German unification, the East and West German Social Democratic parties merged into a single organization and pledged to help the new Germany "find its place in a peaceful Europe." When the two countries unite next Wednesday, the Social Democratic Party, or SPD, will be the largest opposition group to the conservative-led government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl in December elections.

LONDON -- While Americans struggle with a shut-down government, Germans are still struggling to form one, with the latest attempt by Chancellor Angela Merkel to woo a new coalition partner ending in failure Wednesday. Germany has now gone nearly a month without a proper government since voters went to the polls Sept. 22. Merkel emerged triumphant from the election with a mandate for a third term, but her conservative bloc fell a handful of seats short of a majority in the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament.

Leftist civilian political leaders allied to armed rebels fighting the government in the countryside announced an alliance Sunday with a small Social Democratic Party, thereby gaining a legal political platform and a means to participate in elections in El Salvador. Guillermo Ungo and Ruben Zamora, leaders of the Revolutionary Democratic Front, said they do not expect to run candidates in National Assembly elections scheduled for next March but have not made a firm decision.

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Brazil's governing Workers' Party won control of South America's largest city as Fernando Haddad was elected mayor of Sao Paulo in Sunday's runoff municipal elections. The big election day prize was won after popular former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and President Dilma Rousseff threw their support behind Haddad, a former education minister. "I thank President [Lula] for the guidance and support. Without it, it wouldn't have been possible to achieve this victory," Haddad said in his victory speech.

A small group of Hungary's Social Democrats broke away from the main party at its first congress in four decades, blaming the leadership for being too liberal and bourgeois. Budapest Radio said 60 to 65 delegates led by lawyer Gyoergy Ruttner walked out on the second day of the 600-member congress to form an Independent Social Democratic Party.

West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian Democratic Union sustained heavy losses in the first of a series of electoral tests preceding Kohl's bid for reelection next January. Results from municipal elections in the northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein showed the party's vote dropping to 44.2% from 50.1% in 1982--its worst showing there since 1962. The opposition Social Democratic Party increased its share to 40.3% from 34.

Finns will hold parliamentary elections Sunday in which the Social Democratic Party is expected to rebound into leadership. Political analysts predict a Social Democrat-led coalition government, with party leader Paavo Lipponen, a 53-year-old political scientist and journalist, as prime minister. Lipponen is credited with rebuilding his party--which was the loser in Finland's 1991 parliamentary elections--after taking over the leadership last year.

Bavarians go to the polls on Sunday to elect a new Parliament in the final state vote before Germany's federal election Oct. 16. The conservative Christian Social Union, which exists only in Bavaria and serves as a junior partner in the ruling national coalition, is expected to maintain its long hold on the state's government. The Social Democratic Party, challenging Chancellor Helmut Kohl on the national level in October, is receiving only 29% support in polls in Bavaria.

Antonio Macedo, 82, a former leader of the Portuguese Socialist Party who retired from politics in 1987 but remained honorary president of the party. Party officials declared a 48-hour halt to campaigning for the European Parliament elections out of respect for Macedo. Leading candidates from the governing Social Democratic Party and the conservative Social and Democratic Center also halted their campaigns in honor of his role in establishing Portuguese democracy. Portuguese President Mario Soares praised him as "a good and generous man . . . who fought for liberty and democracy."

The Social Democrats, defeating Chancellor Helmut Kohl's conservative party for the third time this year, won elections Sunday in the city-state of Hamburg, official results showed. The Social Democratic Party, or SPD, garnered 48% of the vote, giving it 61 seats in the 121-seat Hamburg Parliament--a narrow majority.

— A small party decided to leave Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's ruling coalition over his broken campaign promise to move a U.S. Marine base off Okinawa island, and he faced angry calls to resign Sunday. The departure of the Social Democratic Party from the three-party coalition is unlikely to bring down the government led by Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan. But his poor handling could significantly hurt the Democrats' performance in upper-house elections expected in mid-July.

German politics are usually about as raucous as chamber music, but Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's stunning plan to call early elections has sent shudders through the nation's beer halls and salons. Facing an angry public and a floundering economy, Schroeder's gamble on elections in September amounts to an admission that his Social Democratic Party is too divided to reform Europe's most generous welfare state.

In a sign of how much his economic reforms have angered the liberal core of his party, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder surprised the nation Friday by taking a political gamble and resigning as leader of the Social Democratic Party. The abrupt move marked the widening divide between one of Europe's oldest political parties and Schroeder's attempts to overhaul the nation's generous welfare state.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats on Sunday suffered their sixth straight setback in state elections since taking power a year ago, but they proclaimed themselves relieved that the Berlin vote was not as humiliating as earlier referendums on the government's modest reforms.

Unable to form a new coalition government, the Liberal Democratic Party on Thursday struck a loose alliance with two smaller parties that virtually ensures Ryutaro Hashimoto will continue as Japan's prime minister. But how effectively he can implement his conservative, pro-business policies as head of a minority government remained unclear. The LDP scored sharp gains in the Oct.

Although the Liberal Democratic Party scored well in Japan's weekend parliamentary elections, political maneuvering and coalition-building in the next few weeks will determine how smoothly the new government can enact key policies, including measures to address the banking system's bad loan problems, boost economic growth and promote better telecommunications at lower cost.

Germany's main opposition party, the embattled Social Democrats, dumped leader Rudolf Scharping at its annual party congress on Thursday and elected in his place the independent-minded governor of the southwestern state of Saarland. Oskar Lafontaine, 52, is remembered foremost as the man who resoundingly lost Germany's 1990 federal election to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a Christian Democrat.

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Brazil's governing Workers' Party won control of South America's largest city as Fernando Haddad was elected mayor of Sao Paulo in Sunday's runoff municipal elections. The big election day prize was won after popular former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and President Dilma Rousseff threw their support behind Haddad, a former education minister. "I thank President [Lula] for the guidance and support. Without it, it wouldn't have been possible to achieve this victory," Haddad said in his victory speech.

Although the Liberal Democratic Party scored well in Japan's weekend parliamentary elections, political maneuvering and coalition-building in the next few weeks will determine how smoothly the new government can enact key policies, including measures to address the banking system's bad loan problems, boost economic growth and promote better telecommunications at lower cost.

Germany's main opposition party, the embattled Social Democrats, dumped leader Rudolf Scharping at its annual party congress on Thursday and elected in his place the independent-minded governor of the southwestern state of Saarland. Oskar Lafontaine, 52, is remembered foremost as the man who resoundingly lost Germany's 1990 federal election to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a Christian Democrat.